How to connect to POTS

Asterisk Asterisk Support
1

Ok I can’t find the answer to my problem anywhere so I am hoping that someone can show me the way.

I am a programmer and I want to know how I can do this technically.
How can I call someone on an ordinary phone line. Like if someone doesn’t have VoIP installed, is not connected at all to the internet. Can I do that without using my actual analog phones? (POTS)

I don’t want to connect my phone to a VoIP server, I don’t want to route 2 phones together with a VoIP server, I just want to call another number that I don’t know ahead of time that isn’t on a VoIP network.

I’m thinking that from my computer I can use Asterisk to connect to a PSTN (??) and it will make the call to an actual oridinary phone? Or that my computer with Asterisk has to be connected to a lot of phone lines and that there is no way to do it over the internet.

Please help, thanks!

2

Basically if I wanted to make my own Vonage Company what would that consist of. What does Vonage do to get the phone calls go to regular phones ( I know how to get calls “from” regular phones), but how can I call regular phones that aren’t hooked up to a VoIP device/software using the internet.

3

you either need to provide your own PSTN termination (POTS/T1/E1 etc, you take your pick) or you use a termination provider.

the wiki at voip-info.org has lots of details and links for termination providers and help or doing your own.